Divine Genetics

“Divine Genetics” is the headline of a brief item found in ScienceShots 19 September 2007, which goes onto say: “In the Old Testament, God tested Job's integrity by letting Satan cover Job's skin with painful sores. The episode lends its name to "Job's syndrome", a rare disorder characterized by boils, dermatitis, and pus-filled cysts in the lungs. The blame lies with an excess of the inflammatory compound immunoglobulin E. Why the surfeit? According to a study published online 19 September in The New England Journal of Medicine, mutations in the STAT3 gene throw a regulatory protein out of whack. Deciphering the disease's genetic basis should help researchers devise treatments for the disorder, perhaps one day relieving patients’ suffering as God eventually did for Job.”

Editorial Comment: ScienceShots is part of the news service produced by the journal “Science”. We are pleased to see a mainstream scientific journal accurately report an event described in the Bible. Just one ticklish question – how can we tell students about this without bringing God and the Bible into the Science classroom? (Ref. immunity, education, infection)